June 14, 2010

Our last day in Iceland began with a morning flight from Akureyri to Reykjavik on Air Iceland, the domestic carrier.

Oliver took this photo out the window of our small plane, proving that Iceland is
just as strange from above as below.

View from the plane flying into Reykjavík. Note dark blur of propeller blade on right of frame. Yikes!

We had over 6
hours until our flight out of Keflavík to Seattle. First, Jakob, my Icelandic
publisher, picked us up from the Reykjavík airport and we drove around the city a bit for a last look.

“There’s our new mayor,” Jakob announced casually as we
wound through some old streets of Reykjavík. We turned our heads and sure enough, there he was, Jón Gnarr, stand up
comedian, leader of Besti Flokurinn (The Best Party), and newly elected
on our 2nd night in Iceland, striding alone through Reykjavík in dark sun glasses and a cell phone to
his ear. Best of luck to Besti Flokurinn!

A spectacular view across the water from Reykjavík, Viking boat sculpture in foreground...

... but turn your gaze across the street in the other direction, and you’ll see sights like this one: a half constructed apartment building stands unfinished and unoccupied a year and a half after Iceland’s economic crisis.

Throughout the trip I've been collecting Icelanders' thoughts on the Kreppa (the economic collapse of 2008) and the question of whether Iceland should join the European Union and replace the Krona with the Euro. Stay tuned for a "Post-Kreppa Iceland" blog post in the near future...

And a Final Send Off From Hafnarfjörður

Jakob then handed us off to Almar Grímsson, who took us to have lunch with his wife at their home in Hafnarfjördur. Almar is someone I should have met at the beginning of the trip, at my first event in Reykjavík. After all, he is the president of the Icelandic organization Þjóðræknisfélag, counterpart to The Icelandic National League of North America; the person who arranged for my donated plane ticket from Icelandair; and the co-sponsor of several of the book events on this tour.

But Almar was blindsided in a terrible car crash a day before we arrived and was lucky to escape with his life. He wasn’t well enough to venture out to introduce me at the event on May 31, but he’d recovered sufficiently by June 11 to provide us with a wonderful send off.

Our last meal in Iceland, prepared by Almar’s wife Anna: a traditional
spread with various types of herring dishes, local Icelandic cheeses, and gravlax
with homemade dill sauce.

Anna’s freshly made rye bread, by far the best we’ve had on our entire trip.I asked Anna to explain how she made it. Turns out you boil the dough in a milk container for seven hours! She gave me a copy of the recipe and we discussed it in great detail. Oliver and I fully intend to try making this scrumptious bread when we return…

Almar and Oliver bonding over golf talk. Turns out Almar is a regular
at the lava-encircled golf course Oliver played our first weekend in Reykjavík. Almar keeps separate clubs to use when
hitting golf balls out of lava patches.

Last Moment in Iceland: Signing a copy of Freyjuginning (The Tricking of Freya) for a former president of Iceland

Somehow at lunch with Almar and Anna we got on the subject of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, one of the world's first democratically elected female heads of state (1980-96), a woman whom both my late mother and I have admired greatly. I remember the incredible excitement in our household on Long Island when news came that a woman had been elected president of Iceland!

It turns out Almar not only knows Vigdís personally, but will be seeing her on Monday. I asked if he would give her a copy of my book, and so my last moments in Iceland were spent hurriedly signing a book to Vigdís outside the airport. "It is a great honor for me to present this book to you through Almar," I began my inscription.

For some reason, this act nearly made me cry. Maybe it was because of how much Vigdís looks like my mother and many of the relatives in my family. She has our cheeks. Maybe it was just a culmination of the entire book tour, the privilege I felt of being able to return to Iceland after nine long years away and to engage with Icelanders about the novel it took me so many years to write. Maybe it was handing the book to Almar amidst our pile of suitcases outside the airport and realizing that I was actually leaving Iceland.

It's going to take a long time for this trip to sink into my psyche. So many startling landscapes and long lively discussions with Icelanders we met along the way, it seemed we were there for 2 months rather than 2 weeks. And an Icelandic summer day is really two days in one, since the sun never sets, and everyone seems to keep going around the clock with frenetic energy, savoring every moment of their brief summer before the long winter sets in. We've seen a woman planting flowers at 11 pm and a young man painting yellow lines on a roadway at 10:00 at night. The midnight sun allowed us to take in so much more... yet I'm not sure I've really taken it all in yet.

The book tour may be over, but I hope you'll keep reading the blog, because I've collected quite a bit more material for posts about the trip, including thoughts on the Kreppa, instructions for making Icelandic rye bread, things to think about if you're planning a trip to Iceland, and more.

Plus, I still need to publicly thank everyone who made the trip possible. And that's another post in itself. But now it's Monday morning in Oakland, California. It's 5:30 a.m. and the sun is actually rising after definitively setting many hours ago. And Oliver and I are about to get ready for our first day back at our respective jobs. While our souls are still making their way back from Iceland.

June 13, 2010

Finally, the weather is behaving a bit more Icelandically,
overcast with thick white fog draping the snow-topped fjords. Rain, at last!
Refreshing. It’s even cold enough to finally wear the wool winter coat I’ve
been dragging all around Iceland.

A rainy day in Akureyri

Oliver slept until 3 pm today, after returning from his
midnight golf round sometime near “dawn.” He verified that it never got
anything near dark. Somehow this never ceases to amaze me. I didn’t mind
actually, his sleeping half the day, though we’d planned to have a “spa day” at
the Akureyri swimming pool, with a long soak in a “heiti poturinn” (hot pool)
so common throughout Iceland.

Instead, I stayed at home at Kiddi and Solveig’s house,
writing up notes and staring out the window at a ribbon of fog that reminded me
of San Francisco. After the whirlwind of our travels, I’m quite content to sit
alone all day, writing, staring out the window at fog and clouds, more writing,
more staring.

Now Oliver has woken up and we are ensconced in the bookstore
café in downtown Akureyri. Toddlers, infants, pregnant women, and blond teenage
girls clad in black tights prevail, along with bookish trendy-looking men and other
café regulars. Between the grinding of espresso beans and babies shrieking, it
makes for a noisy bookstore experience… (To tell the truth, I have my earplugs
in!)

Family friendly bookstore café in Akureyri, with multiple generations
of family members and a play station on the far right.

We seem to see so many babies everywhere we go—the outcome
of the Icelandic baby boom that took place immediately after the economic
collapse? Iceland is very family-friendly, with diaper changing stations in all
the restrooms, children’s play tables set up in cafés, and even a large play
area in the middle of the Keflavík
airport.

And some more home-cooked seafood meals in Akureyri...

Our host Kiddi dons his world peace apron... to cook us a delicious fish
curry…

The Danes ruled Iceland for centuries, and Iceland only recceived full independence at the end of WWII. Akureyri itself began as a Danish trading town -- Danes controlled all Icelandic trade -- and many of the old houses are built in a Danish style.

After securing their independence, the Icelanders began systematically removing all Danish spellings from their language... but they still love Danish cherry sauce!

On our first night, Kiddi prepared us fish cakes, made with haddock he’d
caught himself that day in the fjord, following a recipe of his late mother’s.
We never get tired of eating seafood in Iceland!

Kiddi does all the cooking in the family, which doesn't seem strange to either Oliver or I, since we both grew up in families where our fathers did all the cooking.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Iceland, and I must admit I have a very strong longing to remain. A job just opened up here teaching English at the Mentaskól (which equates to the end of our high school and the first two years of college). Solveig has determined I have all the right qualifications, and perhaps Oliver could get a job in the beautiful Akureyri library... All dreams for now, but maybe someday.

June 11, 2010

On the Ring Road from Lake Mývatn to Akureryi, we took a
long stop at Goðafoss, where the pagan chieftan Þorgeir threw his “pagan idols”
into the falls in the year 1,000. He had just returned from Þingvellir, where as Lawspeaker he had led the
assembly of chieftans to adopt Christianity and discard the old beliefs. The Icelanders were among the very last
holdouts against Christianity in Europe. Though some Icelandic pagans continued
practicing in private for many years: “It
was said of Freyja, she alone of the gods yet lives.”

The first place we spotted in the center of town was the Eymundsson Bókabúð
(bookstore), where we foundFreyjuginning, the Icelandic translation of The
Tricking of Freya. To the right of Freyjuginning you can see printed volumes bound together and stacked high -- this is the newly released report investigating what really went on prior to the Kreppa (economic collapse of Iceland) and is a best seller! Icelanders want to know what really happened.

We arrived in town
just before my TV interview, so I had to rummage for clothes out of the
suitcase in the car and change in a local café. All our clothes seem to be
covered in a fine sprinkling of ash, road dust, and strangely colored sands
from the sulphur springs.

I got a bit
overexcited during my interview for the local TV station in Akureyri. Too much
Icelandic coffee at the bookstore beforehand! When I saw the interview
broadcast later that evening, I was embarassed by how quickly and giddily I was
speaking. I kept thinking of the line from my book, “Birdie’s getting talky.”

The last event of the book tour was held at the beautiful library in
Akureryi, where we were quickly befriended by Holmkell Hreinsson, the library’s
charming director. By now I am fairly confident reading out loud from my novel
in Icelandic—and the audience laughs in the right places, so I know they are
understanding me.

We had a good turnout and I heard many interesting stories
from members of the audience afterwards as I signed books. One Icelandic woman
told me about how her family had been cut off from their relatives in America
for almost a hundred years. This was an Icelandic family that converted to
Mormanism and emigrated to Utah in the late 1800s. Their kin at home in Iceland
were so angry at them for leaving that there was no communication for nearly a
century… now the ties are being renewed again, and she told me how last summer
she hosted a young Icelandic-American Morman relative of hers from Utah.

Our hosts: Solveig Hrafnsdottir, who did a great job setting up my book
event in Akureyri, and her husband Kristján, who goes by “Kiddi”.

I’d never met out hosts in Akureyri before we arrived to
stay at their house for three days—in fact, we’re not even related (that we
know of). Yet we were all immediately at ease and talking and laughing late
into the bright night.

June 10, 2010

I’d meant to include these photos in my last post, but the
internet connection gets quite faint in parts of Iceland and I can’t always
manage the upload of photos to the blog. Not that I’m complaining, for it's
strange indeed to even be connecting to the internet from such remote places.

June 09, 2010

“I’ve run out of superlatives,” Oliver said today. The
landscape is so continuously varied and marvelous we seem to be in a state of awe-overload.

Yesterday on the Ring Road from Skriðuklaustur in the East to Mývatn in the North,
we stopped at the turn off to Askja Way – a fateful moment in The Tricking of Freya. Again, I had the
sense I had at Thingvellir – that I was experiencing the memories of my
characters rather than my own.

Not only is it forbidden to drive a rental car on the road to Askja, but the signs here say that even off-road jeeps are banned.

In my novel, Freya’s Aunt Birdie takes her on a wild and
dangerous jeep ride to the volcano Askja – for those who haven’t read the book
I won’t say anymore than that. Personally, I feel my own fate is also tied to
Askja – if Askja had not erupted in 1875, my grandfather’s family would
probably never have left Iceland.

The flat-topped mountain Herðubreid, on the way to Askja.

This roadside map shows the route Birdie and Freya take in
the novel, starting south from the Ring Road on F88 and ending up at Askja’s
crater Víti.

June 06, 2010

I was lucky enough to spend a month as a writer-in-residence
at Klaustrið, the writers
sanctuary that is part of the mansion of the late Icelandic writer Gunnar
Gunnarsson.

Skriðuklaustur is the mansion where Klaustrið (the monastery) is situated. I had my own
bedroom, living room, kitchen and a separate library and office – luxury! I arrived at the beginning of May to a snowstorm that shut down all the domestic air flights. The fierce weather continued all month long, keeping me inside and writing. I got more writing done in the one month I spent at Klaustrið than the entire previous year.

Klaustrið today, green and sunny. Though just last week it took a light dusting of snow.

It just fills me
with longing to be back here. That was the best month of my entire writing
life. Alone and writing, day after day after day, for 30 days, in the peaceful
solitude of the Icelandic countryside, across the river from where my
grandfather was born.

June 05, 2010

In 1875, the volcano Askja erupted and the ashfall
devastated much of the countryside in the East of Iceland. A year later, my six-year-old
grandfather Olafur and his family left with hundreds of other volcanic refugees for
Canada.

My grandfather describes the journey in his memoir: “It was
a sunny evening in July…” and then goes on to tell how they rode their horses
with all their belongings, crossing the Lagarfljót River and then riding on to the seaport village of Seyðisfjörður. I have always longed to visit Seyðisfjörður, the last place so many
Icelanders saw before leaving their homeland forever.

The road from Egilsstaðir to
Seyðisfjörður today—we were stunned to see so much snow in June!

So Oliver and I have made the voyage over to Seyðisfjörður as well. A very different journey, by car not horseback, which took us only half an hour. My grandfather’s family’s horse trek was much longer. “We rode all through the night,” he wrote, “though it was bright as day.”

The view my grandfather must have seen from horseback, as his family
came over the mountain and caught their first glimpse of Seyðisfjörður.

Our time in
Seyðisfjörður has seemed like a bit of paradise. It’s an unusual village for
Iceland, with old Norwegian timber houses still preserved.

Seyðisfjörður today...

... a very different place
in my grandfather’s time.

The weather is a bit strange for Iceland – hot and sunny!
Oliver keeps telling people we brought this good weather from California, but
the truth is that it was cold and rainy when we left. We kept saying, “Iceland
can’t be any worse than this,” and indeed, it has been much better. This has
been a picturesque and romantic interlude from our hectic book tour schedule.

Me blogging at an outdoor café in Seyðisfjörður.

Yet it’s strange
to be here, over a hundred years later, sitting in cafes and staying in a
beautiful restored hotel—and then to think of my grandfather’s family waiting
here for their ship to leave port, uncertain of the journey that lay ahead.
According to my grandfather’s memoir, the ship passage from Seyðisfjörður was
filled with typical immigrant miseries: overcrowding, seasickness, and
trepidation...

Oliver enjoying a beer in his
tee shirt.

Good thing we packed
all our wool sweaters, rain coats and rain pants, hats, gloves and scarves! But
who knows, we may need them yet.

June 04, 2010

Yesterday in the early evening, racing alongside the beautiful Lagarfljót River to get to Egilsstaðir before the airport closes to pick up the suitcase we accidentally left behind at my cousin Hrefna's in Reykjavík and which she kindly put on a plane to Egilsstaðir that morning...

... suddenly I see a sign whiz past that says GISLASTAÐIR!

Each farm in Iceland has its own name, many of them unchanged for hundreds of years, and any detailed map of Iceland always shows all the farm names. Which can make Iceland seem very crowded on a map, or at least well populated, if you mistakenly assumed these individual farm names are the names of towns or even villages.

I shout out "Gislastaðir!" to Oliver, who says, "Great" and keeps speeding along. (It is his clothes that are in the suitcase we left behind.)

"It's my grandfather's farm!"

Now Oliver stops the car and turns around and we take a good look at the farm from the road. I had been here once before, in 1998. Back then, a young man came to the door of the red-roofed yellow farmhouse you see here. He spoke hardly any English, and I was only on my fifth day of my first trip to Iceland, but I managed to explain that this was the farm where my grandfather was born.

The young man told me, "I remember your mother coming here. I was just a little boy. In the 1970s."

I ask his name and he says, Saemundur. And that is how I got the name of Saemundur as a character in my novel... He took me to the ruins of my grandfather's old turf-roofed stone farmhouse, out in a field, covered over in grass and wildflowers, with sheep grazing amongst the ruins.

The farm of Gíslastaðir today. My grandfather was born on this same site in 1869.

I have always felt sad not to have ever met this grandfather, born in a distant century on a remote island, never to have heard his stories with my own ears. But I was lucky enough to hear them from mother, and from the few pages of his life story he wrote down before he died.

This is a photograph of Gíslastaðir passed on to me from my mother. I cannot say for certain when it was taken.

So we have now entered the territory of those my mother referred to all my life as "Our People." I have spent quite a bit of time in this part of Iceland, more than anywhere else. As we get back in the car and speed on to Egilsstaðdir to retrieve our suitcase before the airport closes, I rattle on to Oliver all my memories, the place names of the farms from a hundred years ago and today, names of people from then and now, until he is hopelessly confused about who or what we might visit on this trip and who has been already been gone for a hundred years.

This is always how it has been for me when I come to Iceland, the past and the present living side by side. At the glacial lagoon earlier in the day, we sucked on pieces of glacial icicles formed with water over a thousand years old. Thousand-year-old glacial icicles are unbelievably delicious!